


One Day I'll Fly Away

by SorchaCahill



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Moulin Rouge AU in the loosest definition of the word, One Shot, Sebastian is the hopeless romantic, and Hawke is the practical one, but hopeful at the same time, kinda angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 02:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19820989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorchaCahill/pseuds/SorchaCahill
Summary: Sebastian is a playwright with a song in his heart and has big dreams but he's struggling to find the right words. One night he hears a mysterious voice singing one of his songs and he's determined to find out who it is.





	One Day I'll Fly Away

**Author's Note:**

> joufancyhuh gave me small fic challenge for a Sebhawke Moulin Rouge AU in less than 500 words. I utterly failed at keeping it under 500 words. And I meant it when I said this is an AU in the loosest sense of the term.

The attic was hot and stuffy even with the windows wide open but it was the quietest place he could find where he could work. And he had to work, to make this work, otherwise he should have stayed in Starkhaven and been the good son his parents wanted, a role he had strained against since birth.

But the words wouldn’t come. Sebastian stared at the blank page queued up on his third-hand typewriter and felt nothing. The white page mocked him as surely as his parents had when he said he wanted to write rather than join the Chantry. 

He slumped in his chair, letting his head fall back and wondered if the creaking windmill that topped the theatre would lull him to sleep. Maker knew that he could use it; he still hadn’t fully recovered from the ‘welcome party’ the crew had thrown him. He was pretty sure that the little green fairy he’d seen had been a result of imbibing too much of whatever poison Varric had kept pouring into his cup, just as he was pretty sure he passed the hazing they’d put him through.

But it was all for naught if he couldn’t produce the work he promised. He’d been at it for over a week and had only written one piece, one that he liked well enough but felt that there was something missing, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

His eyes were just starting to slide shut when he heard the sound of someone plucking notes on the piano that sat two and a half floors beneath him. Though faint, he recognized the tune as the one he had played during his audition but the tone was different, sadder and more melancholy than what he had written. Sebastian stood up and stealthed his way down the rickety staircase, already familiar with where the creakiest steps were. He wanted to get a look at the ghostly pianist and didn’t want to scare them away by lumbering down the stairs.

As he neared the first floor, he spied the figure sitting at the piano, her soft voice floating over the notes they played. Moonlight filtered through the large window that sat high above the stage, shining a silvery spotlight on the figure, picking out golden highlights in the hair that tumbled down her back.

_ “I follow the night, can’t stand the light.” _

Sebastian’s voice caught in his throat. Her voice was soft and lilting, containing none of the brassiness that the headliner had. He had originally written it for her, matching the tone to the diva’s personality, but this person had taken the song and made it her own.

_ “One day I’ll fly away, leave all this to yesterday.” _

He stepped closer, drawn to her siren song. He had to know who this mysterious songstress was, had to know what it was that caused such heartache to pour out from her.

_ “Why live life from dream to dream, and dread the day-.” _

Sebastian was so entrance by her voice that he didn’t see the cable that ran across the floor, his foot catching on it and only his quick reflexes kept him on his feet. At the noise, the woman jumped up, snatching a tattered cap from the bench, stuffing it on her head as she dashed into the shadows. He caught a flash of silvery eyes, wide and nervous, as she scrambled back.

“No, wait! Please, wait,” he called out, cursing the cable that had wrapped around his foot. He had a feeling that if he didn’t catch her now that he would never see or hear her again. “Wait. Please.”

He saw the shadow pause, her head turn back to him.

“I didn’t cause any harm. Your precious piano only got some smudges.” The melancholy was gone, replaced with an edge of hostility that he wasn’t prepared for.

“I don’t care about any blasted smudges, I just want to talk to you about the song.”

“I didn’t break your song either.”

“Far from it. In fact you made it better.” He took a cautious step forward, afraid that if he moved too fast this skittish creature would vanish.

“Of course I made it better. It’s a song about love and loss. It’s not some baudy tune to sing out to depraved masses.” Hostility turned into snark, tinged with just a bit of pride. The defensiveness was still there though.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “It’s a ballad. May I know the name of the person who made me realize that?”

For several frightful seconds he was afraid that she wouldn’t answer him. That she would disappear from the theatre and out of his life. It wouldn’t be until much later that he realized that this was the moment when he had started to fall in love with her.

“It’s Hawke.”

“Just Hawke?” The name tickled his memory. How did he know that name?

A longer pause this time.

“Éowyn Hawke.”

Images flooded through his brain, memories of seeing a blonde figure flirt with danger as she climbed the rigging above the stage. He’d never seen her face but remembered the wonder and tingle of fear that sat in his belly as he’d watched her leaping from beam to beam without a care in regards to gravity. Fenris had grunted her name at him when he had asked, saying something about her defying the laws of nature. Now here she was standing before him, her body holding a stillness that was at odds with the graceful creature who had haunted the rafters.

She finally stepped into the light, revealing herself to him. A smudge of grease smeared across her face and her hair went every which way, giving her a half feral appearance but he spied an intelligence behind her eyes that he rarely encountered.

Her brow arched and he realized that he was staring and struck speechless. He cleared his throat and extended his hand.

“Sebastian Vael.”

“Everyone knows who you are. You’re the writer from across the sea who has big dreams about writing the world’s greatest play.” She took his hand, her rough calluses rubbing against his. He felt his face flush with heat and wondered if she could see it in the dim light of the theatre. 

“Everyone has dreams. What are yours?”

She slipped her hand out of his, stuffing both into the pockets of her ill-fitting trousers. “I don’t think we know each other well enough for me to tell you that. Dreams are special things.”

“What is life without dreams?”

She laughed, a throaty chuckle that tingled up his spine. “A boring one.”

“Would you, I mean, I’d very much love for you to sit with me and go through the whole song. If that’s not too forward.”

She tilted her head, as if in contemplation but before she could answer bells sang off in the distance, counting the late hour.

“Another time perhaps,” she said as she stepped back and away.

“Is that a promise? I’ll see you again?”

Her slight smile was the last thing he saw before she blended back into the shadows. He started to go after her but she was gone, almost as if she was never there and he was left with the memory of her voice singing his words.


End file.
